By TCN News
As social distancing and public gathering restrictions are in order during the COVID19 lockdown, Dr Ambedkar’s 129th birthday commemorations were organized over video conference by the Ambedkar King Study Circle.
A total of 6 programs across the US were held over the internet and one such video conference by the Ambedkar King Study Circle on April 16. Selvaraj, secretary of the Ambedkarite circle, in his welcome speech quoted from the Annihilation of Caste that “Equality may be a fiction but nonetheless one must accept it as the governing principle,” hence setting the agenda that irrespective of physical hereditary, social inheritance and his own efforts, “man is unequal but should they be treated unequally?”
The conference began with a good number of online attendees from across the globe listening to Dr.Sujatha Surepally expanding on the agenda. She began her speech with on “Indian contradiction, socially feudal, economically digital, what needs to be done.” Dr Surepally is a distinguished Dalit scholar, academic and activist who is working on the ground in Telegana state. She has been vocal about how the state recorded only 10% of Dalits working in media, politics and economics while the others dictate economical and political rules. In the conference she shared her personal experiences of having difficulty in renting a house as a non-vegetarian. She said, “Even education and money have not addressed caste discrimination, modern housing projects and real-estates are not free from caste influences.”
Talking about caste discrimination, she opined that “caste discrimination is different in relatively modern south; however in Bihar & north states, caste oppression is more cruel.” She expressed that in the Indian conditions, “caste system is well adopted in Indian capitalism” and that in any modern day industry or social institution, caste plays the primary role.
Dr Surepally also shared her direct involvement in the fight against the COVID19 outbreak, lamenting that “people have to snatch food from dogs to survive,” extending her fear that more people die out of hunger in the unplanned lockdown rather dying of the virus.
Reminding Ambedkar’s absolute shunning of all types of discrimination, Dr Surepally was critical about Indian left’s initial understanding of caste “who saw caste as superstructure and who later corrected and now see caste as a part of economy i.e base.” Continuing with the same, she mentioned Ambedkar’s analysis on India where Indian have a unique system of division of laborers and not division of labor, adding that “the left takes up Dalit’s issues on land grabbing meanwhile they refuse to see this as a caste issue.”
Marking the auspicious day of 129th birth anniversary of the champion of Indian constitution, Dr.Sujatha insisted that “Dalits have to take up a united struggle rather working on a single agenda.” She reinstated that Dalits need to work in all areas such as education, economic, employment and politics, calling privatization of education as “depriving underprivileged of social mobility.”